


Into The Morning

by BabyDollKurai



Category: Carmilla (Web Series), Carmilla - All Media Types, Carmilla - J. Sheridan Le Fanu, DEBS
Genre: DEBS AU, F/F, Hollstein - Freeform, Snippet, The DEBS AU that apparently everyone was asking for?, eventual hollstein, tbc
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 11:18:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4704140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabyDollKurai/pseuds/BabyDollKurai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><br/>D.E.B.S- Discipline, Energy, Beauty, Strength</p><p>Life is hard enough when you're attending the most prestigious academy for crime-fighting young women who graduate to become some of the top spy operatives in the world. But an encounter with Carmilla Karnstein, a beautifully dark criminal mastermind, leaves Laura questioning everything she's ever known. </p><p> </p><p>(The D.E.B.S AU that apparently everyone wanted?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into The Morning

**Author's Note:**

> DEBS AU. Apparently everyone wanted this. Found a few that weren't exactly my cup of cocoa (they tasted like unsweetened tea. yuck.) so I wrote it myself. I've finished the entire story if anyone is interested, as this is just a snippet of a larger scene. The scene from the film is so brilliantly written that I just had to borrow some of the lines. Enjoy. *turtle noises* -BabyDoll

Laura Hollis scowled at her patterned communication watch strapped around her wrist, silently imprecating it’s decision to lose signal right when she’d entered a dimly lit -and largely ominous- storage room. Crates were set in stacked rows that nearly reached the ceiling, sanctioning for only a few paths to navigate through. Laura squinted when a bright green _EXIT_ sign was presented to her from a few yards away, and she huffed thankfully as she jogged over. Her nerves were beginning to get the better of her, due to her squadrants current situation: tracking and catching the most feared Supervillans of all time. That alone was enough to make her antsy, but not being able to communicate with said squadrants pushed her a little too far. Curiously as she ran, originally which she had assumed to have been the echo of her own footsteps, she heard the ominous taps of shoes which were now beginning to near her steadily. Her heart rate spiked considerably and she bolted, rounding a corner towards the _EXIT_ sign and-- _-_ _bam._  


The impact was sudden, and it sent Laura stumbling down and landing on her butt with a soft _pomf._ She shook her head, the ends of her newly curled locks bouncing along with the sudden movement. She rubbed the heel of her palm against her temple as her vision focused. And sitting across from her, whom of which had also apparently been knocked down by the impact, was a certain dark-haired, fair-skinned, leather-clad criminal woman. 

"Oh my god-"

"Oh _shit._

The two women sprang up in an instant, situating themselves in steady and professional stances. They were at the ready as a clinking of metal holsters echoed from either woman. And in a fraction of a second, both had their guns pointing squarely at one another's chests (which Laura had found curious, because she'd expected someone as ruthless as this to go straight for the head). Laura swallowed roughly, keeping her firing position rigid. Thankfully, her voice didn't falter as much as she'd thought it would. "You're Carmilla Karnstein." The mentioned girl in front of her snarled, her lip curling at an edge.  


"You're a DEB. Just my fortuitous day; I was hoping to get at least one of you down." Her eyes raked over Laura briefly. "Although unfortunately I don't think the runt of the litter would present much of a challenge."

Laura felt her insides begin to boil, but she had to keep placid. This situation was only going to end in one of two ways---either she was going down, or Karnstein was. Laura noticed that while the woman's words held a strong bite, her sultry, sensual tone almost made it appealing. /Almost./ Laura swallowed again at the shiny piece of ebony metal directed at her; she'd never actually been held at gunpoint before, outside of standard DEBS regulation training of course. Then again, she'd never actually held anyone at gunpoint before either. Deciding a professional rout was necessary, and quite honestly was all she could come up with now that there was a loaded weapon about to be fired at her. She stood her ground and recited what she could. "You have the right to remain silent-" 

"You're reading me my rights?" The dark brunette scoffed, disbelief clear in her tone that reflected in their current situation. 

"anything you say can, and will be held against you." Laura finished her sentence, ignoring the brief interruption and feeling somewhat proud of herself for standing her ground. An uncomfortably tense silence settled on them as neither backed down from their deadly positions. 

Karnstein stared the other girl down, scrutinizing her soft features. She looked quite young, but the badge of embroidered stripes just below her left collarbone told her that this girl was in one of the top squadrants at her prestigious academy for crime fighting, vexing little do-gooders. Karnstein unwillingly took in the borderline inappropriate school uniform that her girl was wearing, with its white button down tight blouse and short blue plaid skirt. And---she scoffed quietly. A blue and black tie to match. ' _Did that whole academy have some freaky schoolgirl fetish or something?'_

The girl's steady, furious honey-brown eyes were burning with something that looked proximate to hatred, or at least as much as that cute face could produce. Although, that shiny silver pistol was making that demeanor quite a bit more frightening. Nonetheless, Karnstein kept her cool. After all, she had a leg on the other woman as well. They continued staring at each other, each with an unspoken desperation to either shoot or flee. 

Laura for one, had had enough. "OK, here's the thing..." she blurted out suddenly, her face heating up slightly at her tension-induced outburst. 

The leather-clad woman rose a perfect brow at the sudden break in tension. 

"I'm just...I'm _really_ not up for dying today." Laura bit her lip, readjusting her grip on her pistol, which she continued to aim steadily in case of any sudden movement against her. 

"Well, I'm not exactly the one-way ticket trains' most eager passenger either." Karnstein returned coldly, much to the honey-brunette's surprise. 

"Oh, ok. So...why don't you put your gun down?" Laura said after a shaky breath, motioning with her gun towards the floor. 

"Why don't you put _your_ gun down?" 

"Well, _you're_ the criminal and _I'm_ the cop." Laura said defensively, reminding herself to keep her gun where it was pointed. "So I think I have the proper authority to keep my gun right where it is, villain." Maybe it was just a trick of the dim light, but Laura could have sworn she saw the other woman give a quick and agitated eye-roll. 

The dark eyed woman scoffed again. "Except for the fact that I was minding my own business on some _stupid_ double date with my sister when you guys decided to rain shit all over me?"she spat through gritted teeth.  


Laura's mind backtracked a few paces and her eyebrows furrowed curiously. "Wait." she noticed her stance falter slightly, and her own head cocked to the side. "You were on a blind date?" 

Karnstein's eyes darted away for a fraction of a second before they steeled again, deliberately choosing not to respond. 

"With that blonde girl?" 

"What does it matter!" Karnstein huffed, hostility radiating her from being questioned.

Laura's lips turned up in a tiny smile before she caught herself. "Oh---nothing! I just didn't know you were...a-"

Carmilla scowled. "And _why_ the hell would _you_ know?"

Laura noticed that Karnstein had let her right arm drop, the black weapon now hanging uselessly at her side. What she had failed to notice however, is that her own weapon had faltered as well. Laura stared at the woman inquisitively. "Wow..." she muttered, as her mind was now racing against her will.

She muttered, her mind now racing against her will. Curse her journalistic tendencies. "That like, totally torpedoes my thesis!" she uttered, amazed. 

  
Karnstein squinted at the impossibly giddy girl. "Your thesis?" 

  
Laura paused for a moment,  wide mouthed before reeling herself back in a bit. But not too much because oh my god everything made so much sense and---heat crept up the back of her neck. "I'm kind of sort of writing my mid-term paper on you..." she muttered, ducking her head.

  
The darker-haired girl scoffed. "You're kidding me." 

Laura shook her head frantically. "No! It's for Capes and Capers, gender reconstruction of the criminal mastermind." Laura's hands fumbled in front of her, her gun swinging along haphazardly with them as she tried to spit her words out. "It's a really popular class! But it's hard--- well mostly because there's only so much anecdotal evidence about you." Laura tucked a lock of her own honey-brown hair behind her ear . "I mean, no one has ever really spoken to you. For obvious reasons..."  


"I can't imagine why they wouldn't have just asked." Karnstein wondered in mock sarcasm.  
Laura gave out an involuntary chuckle and gazed at her, pleasantly surprised that she wasn't in a puddle of blood on the floor yet. She found herself scanning the other woman's features, with her dark smokey eyes, her dark wavy hair rung past her shoulders, and bangs that almost covered one of her eyes. Her skin was flawless and fairly pale; dark circles underneath both of her eyes indicated that she didn't seem to sleep much. Laura didn't trust herself enough to let her eyes linger on the other woman's leather-clad body for too long without keeping her guard up because whoa. 

She cleared her throat again and nodded, her curls bouncing. "Yeah, can't imagine why."

 

The fairer girl eyed the uniform-clad girl again, the ghost of a smile upturning her rather dark lips. "Sorry, I didn't get your name." 

Laura snapped out of her trance, tucking her weapon under her arm to reach out and vigorously shake the other woman's hand. "Laura! Hollis D.E.B.S, sector three." 

Karnstein's eyes raked over the smaller girl's body again as their hands remained clasped between them, the edge of her lip remained in an upward curl. "Carmilla Karnstein."

Laura felt her mouth pull into another small grin. "Yeah." 

A moment passed before the two found themselves staring at each other absentmindedly, their current situation seemingly lost in the moment.  
Their hands dropped and Laura's figures brushed over the cold metal of her own weapon, and was brought back from yet another blank. "Oh!" she halfheartedly brought her weapon back up to point a the woman, who had yet to aim her own gun in tern. "You're still, y'know, under arrest." 

Carmilla lazily rose one of her perfect eyebrows. "Oh, am I?"

"Laura!" faint, but steady voices rose up suddenly from what seemed to be the other side of the building, and Laura herself whipped her head around to catch the voices better. It was her squadrant! She turned back around to Carmilla, who was now standing with her weight shifted to one hip, her free hand running through her hair. 

"You know you could just let me go, creampuff." she said with a sultry tone, her heavy eyes making Laura's skin burn. 

Laura's nose wrinkled at the nickname for a moment, before she bit her lip in hesitation. "I...I really couldn't-"  

"Oh come on," Carmilla scoffed bemusedly. "haven't you ever done _anything_ you weren't supposed to do?" 

Laura blinked at that, then seriously considered it. _Well, there was that one time where she-_

"LAURA!" The voices were even closer now, and Laura turned her head away from Carmilla for a moment to answer back. 

"Over here, guys!" But when Laura whipped her head back around, there was no trace of the dark-eyed dangerous woman to be found. Laura's teeth ground together, and out of pure agitation towards letting her own distractedness getting the better of her, she stomped one foot hard on the ground like a fitting child. "Son of a...BAD PERSON!"

A few seconds later and the group had arrived. Danny, along with Lafontaine and Perry---all off their features were laced with both concern and relief. Danny had unsurprisingly reached her first, her red hair flaring as she grabbed Laura's arm lightly and looked her over. "You ok? Dammit L, don't just wander off into random-ass warehouses like that! 

Laura huffed, but nodded genuinely, finally able to calm her rapidly-beating heart. "Yeah, I'm fine. Really." 

Danny didn't look too convinced. "You sure? You look a little...hazed, I don't know. 

Laura's eyebrows shot up in confusion, and Danny's free hand (the one that didn't hold her pistol at the ready) reached out to press against Laura's forehead. "And you're heating up, too." 

The pointedness only served to redden Laura's face further. Danny huffed impatiently. "Well we heard another voice. A girl, maybe. Who else was here?" 

Laura steeled herself and shook her head, her own thought process confusing her. Had she really considered covering for a world-renowned criminal mastermind for even a fraction of a second? _What?_ She grimaced. "She was here." Laura saw LaF raise a brow at her word choice. She nodded at them in confirmation. " _Carmilla Karnstein_ was here."  


Perry shook her head in rapid disbelief, her strikingly orange spirals bouncing. "Laura, that's...that's just not possible; the other agents are following her trail to the city limits right now!" 

Laura shrugged. "Must have been a false trail. Because unless there's some other leather-wearing woman flashing seductive eyes in all of the wanted posters running around, that was most definitely her." Laura could have sword she heard Danny mutter " _Seduction eyes?"_ just as LaF spoke up. 

"L, if she were here you'd pretty dead by now." They turned to Perry for confirmation, who nodded in turn. 

Something on Laura must have caught Danny's eyes, because she was now staring at her intensely. "What the-"

There, tucked carefully behind Laura's right ear, was a single black rose that rested in stark contrast to Laura's light brown locks.  


Laura followed to where Danny was staring and raised her own hand to touch her hair, and plucked the rose from it. She studied it carefully, amazed by the flower. " _How the hell did she-?"_

Danny looked close to furious. She took the rose from Laura's hand and threw it on the ground to crush it with her heel. "What did she say?"

Laura bit her lip. What could she say? That she shook hands and practically exchanged emails with an extremely dangerous super villain? It was then that the unusually heavy realization that she could never speak to anyone about their interaction set in. Her hands flailed in front of her, trying to coax some bullcrap story from her brain. "I heard her gun so I pulled out mine too. She was...hiding. In the dark. So I couldn't see her, really..."

"Didn't you say she was wearing leather?" Danny chimed in curiously. 

Laura flinched, but willed through. "Oh, well I could see her boots, and they were leather, so..."

"Does it really matter what the hell she was wearing?" LaF urged, and Laura was internally grateful. 

"Anyway, she threatened to kill me if I ran, and I told her that the rest of our agents were coming for her." Laura's eyes were fixed towards the ground. "I guess your footsteps must have scared her off."  


That seemed to have been enough, because Danny's features softened in understanding. "I'm so sorry, Laur---you must have been so scared. Well the bitch is gone now, so we should get out of here before Elsie sends the Feds to look for us." 

They all seemed to agree and were just about to head out when LaFontaine spoke up again suddenly. 

"Whoa, whoa. Wait a sec." LaF addressed everyone with amazed eyes before finally settling on the tiny brunette. "L, do you know what this means?"

Laura blinked. "That I'd have to take a minimum of three cold showers to wake myself up from being on the cliff of death?" 

LaF rolled their eyes, but wore a fraction of a grin. "You're the only one, probably _ever,_ to fight Carmilla Karnstein and actually live to tell about it!" 

Laura let the thought roll around in her head quite a while, even after they'd left the building, but it didn't help at all with the overactive pounding in her heart.

 

['Parade- Garbage'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3rsFb79NdU)

 

**Author's Note:**

> Each chapter will correspond with a song from the film's soundtrack. I'll post the link to it later on. Let me know if you want the full story, because it's a little long. (Is "squadrants" a word? I'm making it a word.) Shoobiedoowop. -BabyDoll.


End file.
